DEMONSTRATIONS FOLLOW ZIMMERMAN VERDICT

Protesters, NAACP call for civil rights charges

With chants and prayers, sermons and signs, outrage over a jury’s decision to clear George Zimmerman in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager poured from street protests and church pulpits Sunday amid calls for federal civil rights charges to be filed in the case.

Demonstrations large and small broke out across the country — ranging from a few dozen to more than a thousand — in support of the family of Trayvon Martin as protesters decried the not guilty verdict as a miscarriage of justice.

In San Diego, about 350 people converged in front of the City Heights Performance Annex on Fairmount Avenue for a gathering called San Diego Stand with Trayvon Martin.

“We’re standing with the Martin family,” said Mario Lewis, 46, of Skyline, who helped organize the San Diego event with six groups. “This is San Diego standing with that family.”

“On that night in February, George Zimmerman took the law into his own hands, shot an innocent teenager, went to court and walked away unscathed,” said Christina Griffin, 25, communication chair at the San Diego Branch of the NAACP.

Later Sunday, a vigil was held in Balboa Park.

Nationally, the NAACP and protesters called for federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman, who was acquitted Saturday in Martin’s February 2012 shooting death, which unleashed a national debate over racial profiling, self-defense and equal justice.

The Justice Department said it is looking into the case to determine whether federal prosecutors should file criminal civil rights charges now that Zimmerman has been acquitted in the state case. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and religious and civil rights leaders urged calm in hopes of ensuring peaceful demonstrations in the wake of a case that became an emotional flash point.

The White House issued a statement in which Obama characterized Martin’s death as “a tragedy ... not just for his family ... but for America.” The president acknowledged that “passions may be running ever higher” in the wake of the verdict but urged citizens to remember that a jury had spoken.

In New York City, hundreds of protesters marched into Times Square on Sunday night, zigzagging through Manhattan’s streets to avoid police lines. Sign-carrying marchers thronged the busy intersection, chanting “Justice for! Trayvon Martin!” as they made their way from Union Square, blocking traffic for more than an hour before moving on.

In San Francisco and Los Angeles — where an earlier protest was dispersed with beanbag rounds — police closed streets as protesters marched Sunday to condemn Zimmerman’s acquittal.

Rand Powdrill, 41, of San Leandro, said he came to the San Francisco march with about 400 others to “protest the execution of an innocent black teenager.”

“If our voices can’t be heard, then this is just going to keep going on,” he said.

Earlier, at Manhattan’s Middle Collegiate Church, many congregants wore hooded sweatshirts — the same thing Martin was wearing the night he was shot — in a show of solidarity.

At a youth service in Sanford, Fla., where the trial was held, teens wearing shirts displaying Martin’s picture wiped away tears during a sermon at the St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.

About 200 people turned out for a rally and march in downtown Chicago, saying the verdict was symbolic of lingering racism in the United States. Seventy-three-year-old Maya Miller said the case reminded her of the 1955 slaying of Emmitt Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago who was murdered by a group of white men while visiting Mississippi. Till’s killing galvanized the civil rights movement.

Protesters also gathered in Miami, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., along with a host of other cities.

Earlier Sunday, hundreds gathered in Union Square in New York City to voice their passions over the verdict, hoisting placards with images of Martin.

Some tempered their anger, saying they didn’t contest the jury’s decision based on the legal issues involved.

But “while the verdict may be legal, a system that doesn’t take into account what happened is a broken legal system,” said Jennifer Lue, 24.

Civil rights leaders, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, urged peace in the wake of the verdict. Jackson said the legal system “failed justice,” but violence isn’t the answer.

But not all the protesters heeded those calls in the demonstrations that broke out immediately after the verdict.

In Oakland, some angry demonstrators broke windows, burned U.S. flags and started street fires. Some marchers also vandalized a police squad car and used spray paint to scrawl anti-police graffiti on roads and Alameda County’s Davidson courthouse.